1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display method and a program, and more particularly to an image display method and a program which are suitable for application to an image display device having the functions of reproducing or displaying images picked up by a digital still camera, a digital video camera, or the like, an image display method possessed by a digital television, and an application software program which permits an image display device or the like to execute an image display method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A larger number of images can be picked up by one memory card against a backdrop of a larger capacity of a storage medium, in particular a memory card, for use in a digital still camera (hereinafter referred to simply as a “DSC”) or a digital video camera (hereinafter referred to simply as a “DVC”). Moreover, picking up many images leads to increasing user needs for thumbnail image exhibition which permits displaying more images on one screen and selecting a desired image to be viewed from among the displayed images. Furthermore, the widespread use of digital television broadcasts yields further digitization of a television set (hereinafter referred to simply as a “television” or a “TV”), and thus results in the emergence of products which do not use a personal computer (hereinafter referred to simply as a “PC”) to view images but can use a television to view images picked up by a DSC or a DVC.
The related art will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 shows an example of thumbnail exhibition for many images, and FIG. 3 shows a television remote control.
Referring to FIG. 2, numeral 201 denotes a full television display screen, numeral 202 denotes a focus frame indicating a candidate image for selection, numeral 203 denotes a candidate image display which displays on a sub-screen an image currently focused by the focus frame 202 and its file name, and numeral 204 denotes a thumbnail image on thumbnail exhibition, which is diagonally opposite to the image currently focused by the focus frame 202.
Referring to FIG. 3, numeral 301 denotes a set of four cursor keys which permit four-directional movements, that is, up, down, right, and left movements, of the focus frame indicated by numeral 202 in FIG. 2, numeral 302 denotes an Enter key which is used to display a focused image on the full television display screen 201 shown in FIG. 2, and numeral 303 denotes a set of channel keys, each of which is used to select a television channel.
Because of a larger display screen of a plasma display, a liquid crystal display, or the like, a television using such a display does not have the occurrence of display of too small thumbnails, even when the television gives thumbnail exhibition containing a total of 48 thumbnails, that is, 8 thumbnails wide by 6 thumbnails long, as shown in FIG. 2. This makes it possible to display many images on one screen. A user can operate the television in the following manner: the user uses the cursor keys 301 of the remote control shown in FIG. 3 to move the focus frame 202 and select a desired candidate image to be displayed; and then the user presses the Enter key 302 to display the selected image on the full television display screen 201.
Display methods for displaying many images include, for example, a method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2001-306375, which involves displaying many images overlapping one another, and changing the positions of the images so that the images have varying exposed portions.